BBQ Pork (Char Siu) - The Recipe

I've actually had quite a few people asking for the BBQ Pork Recipe I did awhile ago. Now, I don't mind sharing my recipes, but the problem is, I don't measure anything. My cooking style is very similar to Jamie Oliver's if not more erratic. Its a pinch of this, a shake of that, a 2 blobs of this, a shietload of garlic and add "enough" liquid to combine. So as my workmates going away present, I sat down and tried to work out what is a "recipe" for the BBQ Pork. I've never really tried this recipe, and I probably never will. But in my mind, its the closest to the quantities I *think* I put in...

Marinade:
1kg pork neck cut into strips
Lots of chinese BBQ Sauce - 1/2 cup or Hoisin (1/3 Cup as its a much stronger sauce)
Sherry or other alcohol - 1/4 cup? (Enough to loosen the bbq sauce)
Five spice powder - shietloads! 1 heaped tablespoon
1 tsp salt
10 tsp sugar
1/2 bulb of garlic
Honey or Maltose to glaze

Basically you need enough marinade to cover all the meat.

TIP: I always make my marinade first so I can taste test it and made adjustments before adding the raw meat. (Of course, I know lots of people who taste the marinade that has raw meat sitting in it...)

Marinate overnight (I had mines marinating for 24hrs )

Bake on a rack and using a tray to catch all the drippings. Add a little water to the tray to stop it burnin. Bake for approx 45mins at 180 (Time will vary depending on the size of the meat). Baste with the marinade throughout the whole process. 10mins before its cooked, baste with honey or Maltose and crank up the temperature. Once its nice and golden with little burnt black bits on the corner, then its all good to go!

Serve on a plate of steaming hot rice and boiled veggies. Drizzle with soya sauce or the marinade/drippings (Which you boil of course!)

Lets hope someone can try it out and tell me if its any good? hahaha Here are some photos of when I made it the other week. Since I was cooking for my dad, and he insisted that I cooked it the way we used to in the restaurant, we had to fashion up a Chinese BBQ stove by creating our own hooks:


Once the BBQ Pork was almost cooked, I took them off the hook and put it onto the rack where I can glaze them properly:


Due to time constraints, I couldn't "burn" them as much as I would've liked. Damnit! Need to cook earlier next time to everyone isn't starving:


Finished product:


Damn it was good!! And no horrible added colouring staining my rice all read! Oh, and I've come up with a draft plan to build my own Chinese Charcoal BBQ Stove in the backyard specifically for making BBQ Pork and Roast Pork. Lets see when I can get off my lazy ass and actually build the stove!

Flying Fajita Sisters

I was going through my photos and realised I never blogged about the Flying Fajita Sisters (FFS - in the nice way). I guess I forgot all about it as it was on the day that I found out my Granddad passed away. But I had already made a date with Moishii to have a catch up as I didn't see him for almost 2 months. I had a quick look on the net for something in Glebe and picked the FFS. We met up and decided it was time to get trashed. Its been awhile. We walk into Liquorland and pick up 2 bottles of wine. One each.

We get to the restaurant and we're seated upstairs. I loved the decor of the place. It was so cute and charming. My only complaint would be all the wooden floors and walls didn't help minimise the sound. We ended up screaming at each other half the night. Mind you, that could be because of the alcohol. Talking about the alcohol, they had the strangest wine glasses. They're curved at the very top in such a way, you can barely drink from the glass without having to pour it down your throat. Once we mastered the technique, we downed half a bottle each before the food came out:

Trio of dips with corn and purple corn tortillas

Chicken Burrito with corn salsa and guacamole

Pulled pork Tamale with mole sauce

The food was fantastic. So fresh and flavoursome. It was a real contrast to the Baja Cantina, where the food seems to be heavier. We spent a good part of the night sitting there, eating, drink, laughing and talking about going on holidays again. All I can say is, good thing flight centre was closed.

After about 3 hours, the noise started getting to us, so we paid our bill and went to San Churros. No photos here since my camera died. But we gorged on churros and coffee before heading home for the night. I think I might have been tipsy...

More home cooking

I think I've had enough of going out for awhile. With my holiday and nonstop farewell drinks, I've really enjoyed staying at home or going to a friend's place for some cooking. Here are a few more of my latest creations.

Simple refreshing udon noodle soup - Absolute WINNER!

Pork and vegetable wonton soup

Garlic roasted potatoes.....

...served with steak, corn and home made gravy

Homemade BBQ Pork (CHAR SIU!)

Its been a good 6 or so years since my parents have sold the restaurant. And for the last few months, I've really been missing our "restaurant life". I've also started my own recipes book (Yes I know I don't follow recipes). But its not really a recipe book of stuff I usually cook, its a compilation of recipes our family cooks. Specifically the comfort food my mum dishes out, and our secret recipes for some dishes we used to serve in the restaurant.

I know some dishes will never ever taste the same as they did when we cooked in the restaurant. Partly because we can't get the same ingredients again unless we buy wholesale, we're also more conscious of using MSG, oil, salt etc. But its also because the food always taste better in our memories. And unless I go back in time, I'm going to have to settle for my inferior replicas of our favourite dishes.

One of my favourite memories would be BBQ Pork (Char Siu) day. Every Saturday, my parents would make up a few kilos of BBQ Pork which we use in many of our dishes. And every now and then, my parents will call us about 30mins before the BBQ Pork is ready, to come to the restaurant for lunch. So we'd hop into the car and drive 10mins to the restaurant and sit there waiting for the final basting on the BBQ Pork.

When the pork finally comes out of the oven, dripping with the sweet caramelised basting, we'd elbow each other out of the way to get the pork with a pair of scissors each. Why? We were both after the best bits. What's the best bits? It would be the end bits where the meat, where the honey has caramelised it until the was slightly charred and crunchy. Armed with a pair of scissors each, we would pick up every chunk of BBQ pork, and snip the ends off onto our plate of steaming hot rice. We'd load up our plates with the best bits of BBQ pork, drizzle over a little of the juice that we caught in the pan during the roasting process and add a little soy. We load up the plate with plain boiled vegetables so we could taste the juicy BBQ pork.

The restaurant is gone, and my brother is living overseas. We also don't have a gas oven anymore to give it that extra charred flavour. But when I was visiting Singapore and I made BBQ Pork with my nephews and niece, I taught them what was the "best bit". Suddenly, I had someone to fight with me over the best end bits. Food always taste better when you need to fight for it. ;) With that memory in mind, I decided it was time to actually try out the recipes I've been collecting. First up, BBQ Pork:



It certainly doesn't look like what we used to serve in the restaurant. Mind you, I didn't add any colouring at all, which is what all restaurants used. Plus, my one was baked in an oven rather than dangled over flames like we used to. But I think its an alright effort for my real first attempt. I would definitely make it more charred next time, but I kind of forgot about my pork and didn't want to grill it anymore in case I overcooked it. But in fact, it was perfectly cooked and sooooooo tender and juicy! Marinating it for 24hrs really did the trick ;) I can't wait to try it again!

Day 15 - Bike riding before going home

My niece had piano practice today, so me and my sister took the boys out for breakfast.

Bakuteh - Pork rib soup, preserved vegetables, pork hock and fried dough sticks

The boys on the phone with their dad


After breakfast, we drove to the local Bishan park for bike riding. We hired a bike each, with the exception of my sister. She's going to be running behind my youngest nephew again today. I went for a few kilometer ride around the park with my older nephew, whilst the youngest one learnt how to steer and brake. He actually did quite well by the end of the day. He stopped crash landing.

We went home to rest up afterwards. I did some last minute packing to make sure there's nothing I've forgotten and spent some time with the kids. When it was dinner time, we decided to go back to the Chicken Rice place we stopped by the other day.

A whole Hainese chicken

Boneless chicken feet and kidneys


Chilli bean sprouts


Lime juice

Since I don't appreciate plane food, I grabbed a box of chicken rice take away to eat on the flight. I was already really fully, but my brother in law wanted to have some strudel at the Applebee strudel shop that was next door. He went and ordered a durian strudel, but after one bite, I was full to bursting. And my coffee hasn't even arrived yet! And when it did, I thought I was supposed to wash my face in it. Look at the size of the cup! My hand doesn't even go half way around it!


We get back to my sister's place where I spend some time with the kids and have a quick shower. When it was time to leave, my nephews and niece gave me big hugs and even asked me not to leave. Its always hard saying goodbye to the kids.

I get to the airport in record time and check-in without any problems. Even though my suitcase was 27kgs. And my hand luggage was 17kgs. I was planning on doing duty free shopping, but because of the stupid liquid restrictions, I can only buy liquids an hour before departure. The reason is they need to seal the goods in a plastic bag and they will deliver it to the gate for you. Since there was only an hour left, they reckon they can't deliver to the gate so I miss out on my duty free shopping.

I get onto the plane and spot a row of 4 seats next to me empty. The minute they closed the cabin doors, I jumped seats and claimed all 4 to myself. And when the seatbelt signs went off, I raised all the arm rests and laid down for a good nights sleep. I even skipped breakfast since I knew I had my chicken rice.

It was a short 2 weeks, but I'm glad I took the time to go to Singapore and spend with the kids. Even though I had all the problems going on at work, I think it was probably good that I missed most of the tension in the office. And now, to diet and detox.

Day 14 - Good Friday gorging

Its Good Friday, and the whole family is off to church whilst I stay home to pack so I know how overweight my suitcase is. I duck downstairs to get a big breakfast to keep my energy up in dealing with my shopping:

Noodles with fish cakes and chicken wings

Shredded turnip dumplings

It took me a good 2 hours to pack my suitcase, which involved removing all wrapping and price tags from my goods and checking all the DVDs I got. By the time I had everything done, it was time to meet the rest of the family for lunch. I cab it to the church where I hop into a car with my brother in law to go to lunch.

A bunch of their friends came and we went to a Hakka Yong Tau Fu restaurant. We lined up for 3omins before we got a table. And to be honest, the food was pretty ordinary. I don't know why its so popular. Actually, my brother in law hated the food and went home to eat bread instead. Of course, their friends took us there, so we all had to be polite.

The original plan was to go back to East Coast for bike riding. But again, its storming. I spent the rest of the day lazing about, reading, watching tv and surfing the web. The rain dies down around dinner time, so we make a dash to a cheap seafood restaurant next to the Roti restaurant we went to yesterday.

Its nothing flash, plastic tables and chairs, but the food is GOOD. Plus, the price of seafood is half the price you would pay at the touristy places.

Sizzling beef stir fry

Prawn paste fried chicken wings

Sweet and sour pork

Steamed mantou (Plain buns)

Butter fried crab

Singapore Chilli Crab

The crab was good, but the sauce was better. I got a big bowl of rice and drenched it in the sauce. God that was good. Really good.